KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Slaying Goliath

 The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and 

the Fight to Save America's Public Schools

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Indiana: Two Virtual Charter Schools Steal More Than $68 Million from State

by dianeravitch / now

The biggest and worst charter scandals are perpetrated by virtual charter schools. Why do states tolerate their waste, fraud, and abuse? The only online charters should be operated and supervised by public officials, not by grifters and entrepreneurs. Indiana was just scammed of more than $68 million by two virtual charters. This was money that should have spent on children and in classrooms to r

Jersey Jazzman: Sorry, Jersey Charters, You Can’t Have It Both Ways

by dianeravitch / 1h

Jersey Jazzman notes that charters in his state are on the horns of a dilemma: on one hand, public school advocates are suing to block charter expansion, because they drain away public school funding: on the other hand, charters want to join a lawsuit that would allow them to share in a settlement intended to provide equity for public schools in impoverished districts. JJ is a very smart guy but

YESTERDAY

Teresa Hanafin on Bill Barr’s Alleged Scolding of Trump (“Mister Man,” As Limbaugh Calls Him)

by dianeravitch / 19h

Teresa Hanafin writes the Fast Forward feature for the Boston Globe, interpreting the big events of the day and referring to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the weather, and sports in Boston. She writes today about the Department of Fake Outrage: I am so sick and tired of this week that I was tempted to make this a TFF. But too much happened yesterday to ignore. Nonetheless, in honor of it being the Fr

Charter Advocates Stunned by DeVos’ Decision to Abandon Federal Charter Program

by dianeravitch / 21h

Charter advocates have reacted with astonishment and outrage at the Trump-DeVos decision to fold the federal Charter Schools Program into a block grant to the states, along with 29 other programs. The Trump administration’s goal is to shift federal funding to states and let them decide how to spend the money. Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat writes the story here, detailing the administration’s rationale

Guiliani: The Man and the Myth

by dianeravitch / 22h

When Rudy Guiliani was planning to run for mayor of New York City in 1993, he commissioned a study of his vulnerabilities so that he would be prepared to respond to attacks. The vulnerability study compiled a long list of his deeds and misdeeds that would give ammunition to critics. After he read it, Guiliani ordered that it be destroyed, lest it fall into the wrong hands. Apparently, one copy wa

John Thompson Reviews SLAYING GOLIATH, Part 2

by dianeravitch / 23h

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reviews SLAYING GOLIATH. This is the second part of his review. This is an excerpt of a long and thoughtful review. This second post will focus on Ravitch’s analysis of the research which predicted the defeat of accountability-driven, charter-driven policies. Perhaps the most striking pattern documented in Slaying Goliath is how they faile

John Thompson Reviews SLAYING GOLIATH, Part 1

60by dianeravitch / 1d

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reviews SLAYING GOLIATH in two-parts. This is part one. He begins: Diane Ravitch’s Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools is the history of the rise and fall of corporate school reform, but it is much more. It isn’t that surprising that a scholar like Ravitch, like so many

Jeff Bryant: How Corporations Are Forcing Their Way into America’s Public Schools

28by dianeravitch / 1d

Jeff Bryant has written a powerful story that reveals the growing dominance of corporations in schools. In the expanding effort to privatize the nation’s public education system, an ominous, less-understood strain of the movement is the corporate influence in Career and Technical Education (CTE) that is shaping the K-12 curriculum in local commu nities. An apt case study of the growing corporate

FEB 13

Bullying in School Follows Trump’s Lead

200+by dianeravitch / 1d

The Washington Post reports that school bullying is following the model created by the Big Bully in the White House, who delights in ridiculing others. Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico, and teenagers in Maine sneered “Ban Muslims” at a classmate wearing a hijab. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the pres

Los Angeles: Real People (Not Funded by Billionaires) Launch a News Website

22by dianeravitch / 1d

A few people in Los Angeles who think a great deal about education issues decided to launch a new website. They are real people who are not funded by billionaires Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, the Waltons, Bill Bloomfield, Michael Bloomberg, or Bull Gates. Imagine that! Blogger Sara Roos writes an introduction: Dears: With this I am announcing the launch of the Los Angeles Education Examiner , a site

Fred Smith: How Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein Nudged Test Scores to Get Bragging Rights

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Fred Smith was the testing expert at the New York City Board of Education for many years. After he retired, he became a relentless truth-teller about the flaws of standardized testing and the clever means of distorting the stats to produce the desired results. He currently acts as an unpaid advisor to opt-out parents. Smith sent this article from 2007 that shows how Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor

Louisiana: Democratic Governor Edwards Pledges to Increase Education Spending, But Not on Raising Teachers’ Salaries

by dianeravitch / 1d

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards announced a budget proposal that earmarked new spending on education, but no raises for teachers, whose pay is below the average for southern states. For Louisiana public school teachers, a group that includes some of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ earliest and most avid supporters, the governor’s first post-reelection budget proposal has good news and bad news. The go

Jackie Goldberg: Lies the Billionaires Tell

54by dianeravitch / 2d

Jackie Goldberg is running for re-election to the Los Angeles Unified School Board. She is an experienced public official who has supported public schools for decades as a school board member and state legislator. A rightwing billionaire dumped nearly half a million into her low-budget race to try to stop her in the March 3 election (early voting has already started.) Jackie was endorsed by the U

Education Week: Common Core Is Still a Hot Item for Vendors

21by dianeravitch / 2d

The controversy over the Common Core standards has died down since so many states have renamed and rebranded them as if they no longer exist. But below the eye of public attention, Common Core does what it was intended to do: It has created a marketplace for vendors. Alex Harwin, in her update of the marketplace, writes that more than two-thirds of district leaders say they are still buying CCSS

FEB 12

Teresa Hanafin on Trump’s Politicizing the Justice Department

by dianeravitch / 2d

Teresa Hanafin writes the “Fast Forward” column for the Boston Globe: The biggest story that is still reverberating today isn’t Bernie Sanders’ victory in the New Hampshire primary, or Pete Buttigieg’s close second-place finish, or Amy Klobuchar’s remarkable rise, or the surprising slide of Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. No, it’s Trump’s stunning, deliberate, and unprecedented insertion of presi

Bill and Melinda Gates Describe Their Vision for the Future

92by dianeravitch / 2d

Discounting for the rhetoric and hyperbole, it is worth reading Bill and Melinda Gates’ letter about what they do and why they do it. They claim that Deborah Meier was one of their primary inspirations for their work in education, but knowing Debby Meier, I doubt that they read her book The Power of Their Ideas or that they understood what she was saying. Both of us had the chance to attend excel

Washington Post Finds Bloomberg “Stop and Frisk” Video

49by dianeravitch / 2d

Mike Bloomberg has this problem with minorities because of his many years of telling the police in New York City to stop black and brown youths and frisk them, without cause. When he began his campaign for the presidency, he went to a black church and apologized for stop-and-frisk. But the damage had been done. The Washington Post found one of what must be many videos where Bloomberg touted his s

The Secret to Mississippi’s “Success” in Fourth-Grade Reading, Revealed by Thomas B. Fordham Institute

56by dianeravitch / 3d

Many researchers were amazed to see that the state of Mississippi had a sharp growth in its fourth-grade reading scores. Fortunately, the far-right Thomas B. Fordham Institute reveals how this happened. The surest path to success in fourth-grade reading on NAEP is to hold back third-graders who did not pass the third-grade reading test. It works! It increased Florida’s fourth-grade reading scores

Peter Greene: Trump and DeVos Abandon Charter Schools for Hot-Looking Vouchers

200+by dianeravitch / 3d

Peter Greene nails it here, in discussing how Trump and DeVos folded the federal Charter Schools Program into a big, fat block grant that states can spend however they wish. For decades, Republicans have been wanting to eliminate social programs by turning them into block grants to the states. Now, as Valerie Strauss reported , charter school advocates are outraged. Brought to the dance and aband

FEB 11

Dana Milbank: Bill Barr Supports Hookers for Jesus

60by dianeravitch / 3d

No U.S. Attorney General in history has ever turned the Department of Justice into a political tool belonging to the president. Until now. Bill Barr has totally politicized the Department. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote today: There has never been a better time to be a Hooker for Jesus. Under Attorney General Bill Barr’s management, it appears no corner of the Justice Department can es

Laura Chapman: A Few More Trump Budget Cuts to Think About

100+by dianeravitch / 3d

Trump proposes to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, which are very small appropriations, but which Republicans have always hated. I seem to recall that he wants to eliminate NOAA so the weather service can be completely privatized, and the public will have to pay to find out what the weather is and might be. Laura Chapman adds: In addition to the cuts to education pro

New Jersey: Is Chris Christie Still Governor?

by dianeravitch / 3d

The Education Law Center is suing to block former Governor Chris Christie’s 2016 decision to expand charters in Newark: About Us News ‌ ‌ February 11, 2020 NJ SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW STATE COMMISSIONER’S DECISION TO DRAMATICALLY EXPAND CHARTER SCHOOLS IN NEWARK The New Jersey Supreme Court has granted a petition filed by Education Law Center (ELC) to review the State Commissioner of Education’s 2

Bloomberg Blocks Release of His Comments at Aspen About Minorities and Guns

29by dianeravitch / 3d

Four years ago, Michael Bloomberg spoke candidly in Aspen about his stop-and-frisk policies that targeted young black and Hispanic men, but he immediately requested that it not be released to the public. Although he was proud of his policy, he knew there was something that wasn’t right about targeting young minority males. Charles Blow of the New York Times wrote about the racist, disastrous poli

Tim Slekar and I Discuss My Book on “Busted Pencils”

by dianeravitch / 3d

Tim Slekar, one of the pioneers of the Resistance invited me to talk with him on his podcast Busted Pencils. We talked about SLAYING GOLIATH.

SomeDAM Poet: College Ready in Kindergarten

24by dianeravitch / 4d

When Arne Duncan was Secretary of Education, he touted the idea that every student should be college ready. There has been considerable debate about which was Arne’s most memorable utterance. Some say it was his claim that Hurricane Katrina “was the best thing that ever happened to the schools of New Orleans,” despite the deaths of over 1,000 people. Others think it was his crack that the reason

Trump’s Budget for Education Eliminates the Scandal-Ridden Federal Charter School Program

100+by dianeravitch / 4d

To the shock and consternation of charter school advocates, the Trump budget proposal abandons the controversial federal Charter Schools Program, turning it into a state bloc program that turns the money over to the states. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools issued a scathing denunciation of the axing of the federal charter school programs, which has enriched the big corporate chart

Laura Chapman: EdReports is NOT Independent!

32by dianeravitch / 4d

Laura Chapman writes: “EdReports, an independent curriculum review nonprofit, rates curriculum on three gateways: Text Quality, Building Knowledge, and Usability. Amplify CKLA earned a green rating in all three.” This should not be regarded as a trustworthy endorsement. Here is Why. Recall that the Common Core State (sic) Standards were first marketed as if they were not intended to be about curr

Trump Proposes Deep Cuts to Social Programs, Including Education

500+by dianeravitch / 4d

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is in charge of the appropriations for most social programs. She released this list of the programs that the Trump administration wants to slash or gut. She stands in his way, which illustrates the importance of re-electing a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and electing a Denocratic Senate to stop the attacks on needed, successful federal programs

FEB 10

ProPublica: The Navy Installed Touch-Screen Technology: 10 Sailors Died

by dianeravitch / 4d

ProPublica has another important expose, this one about the Navy’s dependence on flawed technology. I donate to ProPublica. This investigative journalism has never been more important. The Navy installed touch-screen steering systems to save money. Ten sailors paid with their lives. COLLISION COURSE When the USS John S. McCain crashed in the Pacific, the Navy blamed the destroyer’s crew for the l

Dispelling the Myths of the College Admissions Tests

58by dianeravitch / 4d

This post was submitted as a comment by a reader who self-identifies as “Democracy”: There’s little question that the SAT and ACT are marginally “good” at predicting success in college. I’ve made this point here numerous times. The best predictor of success in college is high school grade point average (including an SAT score doesn’t add much). Moreover, research shows that “the best predictor of

New York City Parent: How “Reformers” Rig the Game So They Always Win

83by dianeravitch / 4d

One of the regular commenters on the blog signs in as NYC Public School Parent. She wrote the following: The ed reformers have set up a game with rules in which they always win. If 100% of students in public schools are meeting standards, then the standards are too low. If 50% of students in public schools are meeting standards, then the schools are terrible. If a charter comes in and cherry pick

National Education Policy Center: The Myth of Charter School Waitlists

50by dianeravitch / 5d

Five years ago, Kevin Welner and Gary Miron explained why you should not believe claims about charter “wait lists.” At the same time that they released this caution (2014), the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools [sic] put out a press release claiming that more than one million students were wait-listed to get into charter schools. Five years later, the New York Times cited this press re

FEB 09

Last Book Tour Date in California: The Best!!!

42by dianeravitch / 5d

Tonight (before the Oscars) I spoke at the Mark Taper Auditorium in the Los Angeles Central Library. It was a magnificent event, led by Alex Caputo-Pearl of the United Teachers of Los Angeles. The library is an elegant building that has been renovated. The auditorium is gorgeous. The audience was wonderful. The event was videotaped so I hope to post it here. I noticed that many big contributors t

Is There Hope for Florida? See This Flash Mob

21by dianeravitch / 5d

The young people of Florida offer hope. Watch this! ‪Les Misérables Flash Mob – Orlando Shakespeare Theater https://youtu.be/Cn8PiqIXEjQ via @YouTube‬

Alabama: The Rise and Collapse of a Rural Charter School

22by dianeravitch / 5d

David North of the Center for Immigratuon Studies recounts the story of the Gulen charter schoo l that thought it could open in a rural Alabama district with a declining enrollment. In Texas and other states, groups started or inspired by Pastors for Texas Children have relied on rural Republicans to block vouchers because they love their public schools, the heart of their communities. The federa

UTLA Shames the “Corporate Special Interests” with Billboards

36by dianeravitch / 5d

The United Teachers of Los Angeles is militantly fighting back against the privatizers who are attacking public schools and seek to divert public money to charters and vouchers. The UTLA embodies Resistance to privatization and to those who oppose full funding of Los Angeles’ public schools. UTLA has created a billboard portraying the “ Corporate Special Interests Vs. Our Public Schools.” Open th

MIchael Mulgrew: The “Inconvenient Truth” Behind “Successful” Charter Schools

58by dianeravitch / 6d

Michael Mulgrew is president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, the largest local in the nation and in the American Federation of Teachers. He published this article in the New York Daily News, which is strongly pro-charter and often writes about the “success” of the city’s charter schools compared to its public schools. Mulgrew explains here the secrets of charter “success.” The r

Trump Lied About Philly Student in “Failing Government School”

3Kby dianeravitch / 6d

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Trump singled out a child from Philadelphia who, he said, was “trapped in a failing government school.” In fact, the child attends one of the city’s most elite charter schools. Didn’t Betsy DeVos realize she had given $1.3 million to the self-same charter school in 2019? President Donald Trump turned a Philadelphia fourth grader into a poster child for the

FEB 08

Book Tour, San Francisco, Part 2

84by dianeravitch / 6d

Despite my ongoing struggle to overcome the remnants of the flu, I managed to get through an event last night with the United Educators of San Francisco. I have become very comfortable with a new format, in which I don’t give a speech but instead engage in conversation with the interlocutor. Last night, my partner was Susan Solomon, the union president. I learned from her about the difficulty tha

Happy Birthday, Kate Chopin!

by dianeravitch / 6d

Kate Chopin wrote “The Awakening,” a classic of feminist writing. Garrison Keillor wrote about her today in “A Writer’s Almanac.” Keillor also published this delightful poem today: Where’s that thing? by John Kenney Where’s that thing? you ask me looking in the cabinet above the stove. The new one or old one, I reply, fairly sure you know what I mean. Old one. Under the sink. It’s not there. Just

Laura Chapman: What Is Gates Planning Now?

36by dianeravitch / 6d

Laura Chapman, intrepid researcher, reports on Bill Gates’ next adventure in education. comment Laura H. Chapman chapmanlh@aol.com 69.133.10.177 Gates is not finished with meddling in public education. Far from it. In case you missed it, here is the new twist on how he will be spending money. In June of 2019, Alex Gangitano of The Hill reported “Bill and Melinda Gates launch lobbying shop.” The n

Orlando Sentinel: Should Publicly-Funded Voucher Schools Be Allowed to Discriminate?

60by dianeravitch / 6d

The Orlando Sentinel surveyed Florida’s voucher schools and found that nearly 160 of them openly discriminate against LGBT students, families, and staff. Democratic legislators object and have been meeting with the head of the state’s Step Up for Students, which transfers hundreds of millions of dollars (that would otherwise go to the state as taxes ) to voucher schools. Some major corporations h

Steven Singer: Researchers Disagree about When to Praise Students

by dianeravitch / 6d

Steven Singer read a recent study about how and when to praise students. He compared it to earlier studies. Too much is bad. Too little is bad. He writes: So what are teachers to do? Frankly, researchers don’t know. They look at discrete data sets and try to make broad conclusions. However, when you’re dealing with something as complex as the minds of children , this approach is destined for fail

Nancy Bailey: Why Do Districts Buy This Reading Program?

50by dianeravitch / 7d

Nancy Bailey features a post about an absurdly inappropriate reading program, citing work by Betty Casey in Tulsa. Casey interviewed experienced reading teachers, who gave her examples of age-inappropriate questions in the Core Knowledge Amplify scripted program. Casey writes: Do you think primogeniture is fair? Justify your answer with three supporting reasons. You may think this is from a high

Jan Resseger: Ohio Politicians Struggle to Clean Up the Mess They Made

by dianeravitch / 7d

Jan Resseger describes the chaos and disruption caused by Ohio’s choice-made Legislature. The Ohio House is trying to curb the overreach of the expanded voucher program, which unexpectedly swooped up some white, 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all